Fracture
by Mystery Muse MMX
Summary: Assumes Vile Mode as canon. The shockwaves of Sigma's initial rebellion continue. Zero rebuilt under X-Hunter control, Vile revived by Sigma, and X, the unknowable factor, nearly destroyed...
1. Retrieval

Sigma gazed down on the battered Reploids scattered across the floor at his feet. Zero was face down, sparking now and then, a puddle of blond hair and shattered armor. X, farther back, seemed to be faring only slightly better; he was trying to get up over and over, but couldn't get further than all fours. He looked as though he'd taken a few too many blows to the head; he kept blinking, shaking his head. And the last, the one Sigma understood the least... Vile, with a massive, fatal chest wound, the lower third of his core and most of his chest-components blown out completely by X's last charge shot.

Vile's helmet hid his face- if he even had one. Sigma had no idea what the purple-and-white Maverick was thinking; he had never become one with the Virus, so Sigma's will had no power over him. That had been fine- Sigma wanted to see what an independent Reploid powered only by hatred could do.

They exchanged brief words.

_There's no hope for you, as you are. But perhaps..._

Sigma turned away, hand moving to his ear. Between the three of them, his original Maverick squadron had been annihilated... but that was of no consequence. Sigma had other followers that he'd kept in reserve, expecting heavy resistance. How glad he was that the three had not disappointed him.

[Serges.]

[Master Sigma?]

"Retrieve Vile," he barked aloud and on radio simultaneously as he moved away. He judged that none of the wounded would be moving any time soon. He wanted Vile to hear him, before he died. He wanted X and Zero to hear it as well. _I do not abandon those who may yet be useful to me._

Before long, three more Reploids teleported into the room. Agile, long and skinny, with high sharp shoulder armor. Violen, fat and round, ape-like. The last, a slightly hunched 'old man' Reploid scientist, Serges.

Serges made a bee-line for Zero, grabbing hold of him by the back of the neck and noting the faint, weak growl that the blond gave out. [Master Sigma, Zero is still alive. With your permission...?]

[Granted.] The answer was deeply amused. [Keep him away from the others. I have a place prepared for him; we'll discuss the specifics later.]

X stirred, but only dimly, as he watched the Mavericks gathering up his friend. "..no..." Violen punched him rapidly on the back of the head, and grabbed his arm when he sagged back to the floor. "So what about this one?"

Serges hmmed. "How's that one looking?" referring to Vile.

Agile shook his head, looking up at the older Reploid. "Don't think he'll make it. Bad damage. Real bad."

Violen laughed. "We got plenty of good parts still right here," shaking X's unconscious form. "Whattaya think, Serges?"

"Mmm... Yes, I quite agree. No point in wasting the material... hee hee. Take them both to the usual place and I'll meet you shortly."

"Roger." Violen and Agile teleported away with their prizes; Serges remained lingering just a moment longer- stopping only to smoothe his hand over Zero's brow. To whisper. "Rest easy, boy. At long last, I've found you. Now I can make you complete..."


	2. Bonding

Zero awoke once, only briefly, during the procedure.

He didn't recognize the surroundings- a metal room, high ceilings, the low sounds of electricity and machines crackling around him. He felt detached; it was hard to get his vision into focus. The lights were blurry and soft above his head. He felt extremely warm, tired, heavy. It felt heavy to live; the weight of the world. He noted, without feeling any sensation of panic, that his arms were missing, his right still near his side, opened up and in pieces, his left limp on a counter nearby, with the shoulder-ball-joint detached from the bicep and also in pieces.

Someone was looking down at him- he couldn't recognize the figure except in fragmented pieces. White hair. Bearded. Red eyes. A sense of deja vu swirled over him; he tried to speak.

"Who are you?"

"Relax, my boy, relax. My name is Serges. I am working on completing your construction, that is all."

He must have frowned, some movement on his face, as the old Reploid moved his hand forward and pressed down lightly on his throat. The symbol, Sigma's mark on the Reploid's body, came into focus.

"...You're a Maverick..." Yet Zero found himself unafraid, even unconcerned. There was something... something almost ghostly, eerily familiar about the old Reploid. Something... like a dream... "Who are you?"

"Hee hee, so are you, my boy, so are you! I know all there is to know about you. You just let old man Serges fix you up now. You let the Virus sing you back to sleep."

It was singing to him. It was everywhere, weighing him down but enveloping him with its soft, dark siren song. Serge's hand came over his eyes, pressed down, bringing darkness, bring a kind of cool, soothing weight. Zero felt something inside his chest swell and ache, and he sighed against it. He sank back into the table, into the dark.

_I know you..._


	3. Disappointment

Sigma paused before the keypad to the vault door and chuckled, shaking his head wryly. Five-inch steel bolts; airless, impregnable solid metal, and for what? A robot missing a good third of his vital components; a robot that could barely move under its own power.

He waited, while the bolts thundered backward into the door with a force that shook the air, and the digital lock turned from red to green. The door gave way slowly to a harshly-lit chamber behind. The bank's vault had previously been emptied by Sigma and his assault team- most of the security boxes were punched or ripped open by hand, or their doors neatly sheared away by well-aimed lasers. The material assets inside had already been shifted to another location, added to a growing treasure horde needed to finance the uprising and its aftermath. There would be men and Reploids to bribe, favors and equipment to be purchased.

The air in the vault still smelled of charred metal and smoke. Passing rapidly by the empty shelves, Sigma made his way to the back of the chamber, where X was being kept.

X seemed aware of him, but weak. Parts had been ripped out of his frame to repair other Mavericks- yet, somehow, he still clung to life. He laid sideways on the floor, arms limp, green eyes naked and suffering. His eyes and nothing else moved as Sigma approached, standing over him. A weird, un-Reploid sound was emerging from X's shattered chest- the sound of something inside straining to operate, possibly a broken air intake, a twisted filter. Occasionally, he twitched, a long spark flaring from the wound in his smoking midsection to his shoulder.

Some small part of Sigma stirred, the briefest of chills traveling down his spine, like a prophecy. _His system's adapted and operating even with so much taken out..._

"You disappoint me, X" Sigma gazed down, the stern taskmaster, the Hunter Commander in foul aspect, "Nothing to say? No brave words, no valiant struggles? And here everyone thought you had such _potential_," the disgust dripped off Sigma at that, "Your _worrying_. Your _heart_. All for nothing. You _worried_ that Reploids had no value. I hope now you see how definitively we _do_."

Something moved X. He held in a breath and struggled, with all his strength, just to raise his body up on shaking arms, gaze up at Sigma in grief. "This... wasn't... what Dr. Cain... wanted Reploids... to be."

And Sigma snapped. He lunged down and drove his fist through the largest hole in X's midsection, twisting his hand inside the wound and yanking X up by it bodily. Energy flared and snapped across his fingers, numbing them and sending shocks up his arm; he barely cared, because X was howling, and all Sigma wanted was to hear him scream. He grabbed hold of loose wires he felt inside X and pulled hard on them, shoved X up and back against the wall, bellowing in his face. "You were not Cain's creation. You have _no right_ to speak to _me_ about his wishes! You're _nothing_, a castoff _antique_ from a bygone age, and nothing more!"

He tore his hand out of X, ripping out several more wires with it and letting X drop to the floor. His hand was shaking from the discharged energy- and from something else. Sigma flung away the wires with a snarl, and kicked X in the head once out of sheer spite. Gone was any trace of self-control, the dispassionate warlord; his eyes shone with his hatred of X, his offense at the blue robot's continued existence.

"I think when Zero's restoration is complete, I'll have him kill you."


	4. Irony

_I don't care what happens to this world... by defeating X... I have validated my own existence..._

My name... is Vile.

The ceiling, spinning away. Red wireframes, blurring as his helmet visor's optical system broke down. A reaching- reaching for something- the light, more power, just a few more seconds...

Then cold nothingness.

His memories were still intact when he awoke, though awakening was unexpected. A strange face hung over him, like an ugly, pockmarked moon with a long simian mouth.

"You're ugly," he said, his first waking words in a rebuilt body.

The simian snorted, growling out, "'least I _got_ a face." The Maverick- it had to be a Maverick, Vile thought; who the hell'd ever want to _use_ such a hideous thing for anything else? turned and bellowed. "Buckethead's online!"

A distant voice, too cheerful, called back, "Good, good! I'll be there shortly."

Vile's internal systems checks started automatically, a basic set of diagnostics. He sat up while they were running, rubbing his fingers over the smooth crown of his purple helmet. "Where my ammo?" he demanded. "And my cannon. I want it back."

"Easy, chromedome," the Maverick told him. "Gotta make sure your _donor parts_ don't reject you."

Vile scoffed. "Reject _me?_ Don't make me laugh. What would th..." And he broke off as the diagnostics came in, freezing on the side of the workbench. "T...these serial numbers! These _parts!_"

He lunged off the table and grabbed the Maverick by the throat. "Where did these parts come from? Answer me!" He knew the answer, but he didn't believe his own sensors...

The simian Reploid's eyes bugged out in a hilarious way as Vile throttled him. "From X...! We took 'em from X..."

Vile threw the Maverick to the floor and then, inexplicably, began to laugh. Slow at first, and then rolling, roiling into a full-on hysterical cackle, head tipping back, hands reaching up, up over his shoulders, up to the ceilings...

"S...s...Sigma... you sure have... a sense of humor!..."

_But __**I'll**__ be the one who laughs last!_

He shoved Violen aside as the simian tried to get up again. "Out of my way. I have to show Sigma my _gratitude_."


	5. Twist

Four hours since Sigma had thrown him around the inside of the vault. Four hours since X had laid down on the cold floor, tired and broken, closed his eyes, and tried to find within himself some notion of acceptance. He didn't believe in giving up hope, but everything rational in the world had seemed to explode in the past few hours, and the weight of it all had finally struck home within the forced silence of his imprisonment, freezing his spirit in his throat.

Zero was gone. Cain was most likely dead. Sigma, his friends, his fellow Hunters... all insane, or destroyed. He wanted to fight back, but he could barely move, his body ravaged by the Mavericks for spare parts.

Beyond the heavy, sound-blunting walls of the vault, X felt the ground shaking distantly, and his hearing caught the far, smothered sounds of great explosions. The city was still being attacked; by whose forces, he couldn't possibly say, though he was sure it wasn't just Sigma's troops. Probably, the war was expanding, and humans and Hunter reinforcements were arriving to try and take back the city.

X rolled slowly onto his opposite side, wincing, to face the wall.

_I hope some people made it out of the city okay..._

Behind him, at the other side of the vault, the door creaked and groaned, and came open. Clunking footsteps- too heavy to be Zero's, too light to be Sigma's, X thought- came into the vault. The smell of smoke came wafting in after, thick and clotting.

The footsteps ran to him, and X stared at the shadow the light from the door cast on the wall. _That's..._

Rough hands grabbed X's arms, jerked on them. His elbows were bound, and X was picked up bodily, thrown over the other Reploid's broad shoulder. "Keep your head down and your mouth shut," he was told.

The two Maverick guards that had been outside the door were dead, X saw. The smoke that had filled the vault was from their bodies. X swallowed down his questions, fear and confusion pulsing along his chest.

"Don't get any ideas," Vile rumbled, running toward the vault door. "We're not friends, and I'm sure as hell not doing this for you."


End file.
